Late comics, filler comics, etc.

Back when I was a kid, I don't recall comics being late, ever, really. They may have been occasionally (chances are I wouldn't have noticed a week or two of delay), but if so it wasn't by much. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that late comics weren't a problem for the companies--but what we the readers usually got, instead of months of waiting, were fill-in stories.

I was reminded of this while reading over some old Invaders books from the 70s that one of my daughters came across. The fill-in stories in that series were not new stories--they were reprints of actual 1940s stories. I think I thought that was kind of neat at the time--they were still stories about the Human Torch or the Sub-Mariner, after all--although I would certainly have preferred a story more contemporary with the regular storyline.

Of course that wasn't an option for most titles, and I remember, specifically, reading fill-in issues of the Avengers. You couldn't always tell that that was what they were (twelve-year-olds don't pay all that much attention to writers or artists, or at least I didn't), although if they showed up in the middle of a longer storyline that gave it away. And as long as the same characters were featured, and as long as the story was new, I was pretty much okay with this. 'Course I'm not twelve anymore.

So I'm going to give up that part of my old-fan grumpiness, the part that says "in my day we didn't have these delays--if a comic was running late we'd get a rushed fill-in issue that was at least a new story, and we liked it that way!" Because I'm not sure I would like it that way anymore.

Mainly because, now, I don't go to the store every week to get my comics. I order them online, a couple of months in advance. Mostly I get the same comics, but occasionally I order something unusual, if there's a guest star or something particularly interesting going on in that issue. A fill-in issue would throw all this off. It could make me miss the issue I want. That would be sad. (I'm guessing it'd also be problematic for stores if they ordered extra of Far-Out Adventures #34 because General Nuisance was guesting, and then it turned out that #34 was a fill-in and General Nuisance didn't show up until #35.)

I will keep the rest of the grumpiness, because you never know when it's going to come in handy.

Mind you, I don't like the delays either.